The House on Vesper Sands

By: Paraic O'Donnell

Narrated by: Charles Armstrong

With all the wit of a Jane Austen novel and a case as beguiling as any in Sherlock Holmes' casebook, Paraic O'Donnell introduces a detective duo for the ages and slowly unlocks the secrets of a startling Victorian mystery.

London, 1893: High up in a house on a dark, snowy night, a lone seamstress stands by a window. So begins the swirling, serpentine world of Paraic O'Donnell's Victorian-inspired mystery, the story of a city cloaked in shadow but burning with questions: Why does the seamstress choose to jump out of that window? Why is there a cryptic message sewn into her skin? And how is she connected to a rash of missing girls, all of whom seem to have disappeared under similar circumstances?

On the case is Gideon Bliss, a young Cambridge dropout who is in love with one of the missing girls, and his partner, Inspector Cutter, a detective as sharp and committed to his work as he is wryly hilarious. There's also Octavia Hillingdon, a young reporter determined to tell stories that feel important despite her employer's preference that she write a women's society column.

By turns clever, surprising, and impossible to pause, The House on Vesper Sands peels back the mystery layer by layer, offering in the strange undertow of late 19th-century London a startling glimpse at the secrets we all hold inside us.

©2018 Paraic O'Donnell (P)2021 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Excellent Read, Terrific Reader

Rich characters, an intriguing plot, and one of the best readers I’ve heard in a while make for a fine listen. Parts are a bit grim, but they are few, and the humorous and wise pronouncements of Inspector Cutter lend thoughtfulness tempered with levity. He his a force of nature, and I hope we see much more of him.

Interesting story - can be hard to follow

Lots of characters, moving parts, and the voice for Angie grated on me. I stopped and started and came back to this - just couldn’t get into it.

A fun immersive read

The performance was absolutely amazing. Narrator was committed to the the story and to delegating each character an individual sound, diction and pattern of speech.
Similar to some other reviewers I don’t know that the second narrator (in the story, Octavia) was necessary and the end didn’t come together as well as I’d imagined it could have. Overall though it was great! I would say if you’re not familiar with this style of writing it can take a little longer to process initially.

Was expecting a mystery

I was expecting a mystery but got a paranormal something. I’m not into ghostly appearances in my mystery novels.

So much promise...

Story:I really liked this at first, so much promise. Unfortunately, it just fizzled. The love story between Bliss and Angie was implausible and not interesting. The first half of rhe book was a lot of running around with little arrival.
I found the characters very, very annoying. Between Cutter's big mouth and small brain, and Bliss' cannot ever STFU I got pretty irritated. And that leads me to the Narration: the annoying characters were made worse by the narrators over the top impressions. I turned it off during the seance or whatever it was, that whiny ghost voice was unbearable.